OK, it's official: I no longer care about 18 year olds. Freshman Orientation is the last hyperkenetic, oversexed, foul-mouthed, gender-bending, college frolic I'll watch. At this point I've simply eaten too much American Pie.

When Clay (Sam Huntington) arrives at a large state university, his only goal is to score a dumb blonde. At the same time, Amanda (Kaitlin Doubleday), the sorority girl of his dreams, is challenged by her sorority sisters to date a gay man and then dump him (to get revenge on the evil male of the species). Clay gladly pretends to be gay just so he can spend more time with her, but now he has to figure out "how to be gay." Amanda's Jewish friend Jessica (an especially foul-mouthed Heather Matarazzo) is similarly challenged to date and dump a Muslim. Off to the side, Clay's sensitive roommate Matt (Mike Erwin), a closeted gay teen, is slowly coming to terms with himself while simultaneously falling in love with Matt. And Matt's high-school girlfriend Majorie (Marla Sokoloff) also shows up as a newly self-identified lesbian.

I really wanted to like Dude, Where's My Car? After a week of deadlines, dead time, and dead emotions, I needed a goofy movie to revive me.

So, imagine my horror as I sat alone in the cavernous theater, trying to muster a chuckle or a titter. Ornery ostriches didn't do the trick. Neither did a transsexual stripper, a pot-smoking dog or an appearance by Fabio.

I sat down to write this review with a gleeful sparkle in my eye, anticipating the bitter contempt I would quickly unleash on the entire cast and crew of Whatever It Takes, citing an array of blunders ranging from laughable dramatic moments to a disappointingly predictable adaptation of the already over-used plot movements of Cyrano de Bergerac. Then I remembered Porky's and had a change of heart.

Whatever It Takes is actually a solid pinning of the high school romantic comedy. There's nothing especially original about its plot or characters, but most of its target audience won't notice. Basically, what we have here is the standard boy-wants-girl-but-she's-out-of-his-league-so-his-friend-coaches-him-and-she's-gullible-enough-to-fall-for-it picture. The twist is that this is a two-way exchange. Ryan Woodman (Shane West) is a supposedly geeky high school senior lusting after popular girl Ashley Grant (Jodi Lyn O'Keefe -- She's All That). Chris Campbell (James Franco of Freaks and Geeks) is a dumb but popular jock looking to bed Maggie Carter (Marla Sokoloff), the smart-but-undervalued hottie who lives next door to Ryan. So the two begin a completely unsurprising story arc in which the two most prominent teenage girl stereotypes fall for every line in the book without ever suspecting a thing.

We all have a threshold of tolerance. With Sugar & Spice, it took about 30 seconds before this was breached for me. A gaggle of five bright smiling high school cheerleaders are introduced through cute snapshot close-ups which describe each of them with such monikers as "the Brain," "the Virgin," and "the Mastermind." The pop-fizz music, pretty-ninny faces, and anorexic bodies immediately shouted: This is not your kind of movie.

I'm willing to accept that. The teenybopper genre is meant to appeal to a younger, less cynical audience. However, it's painful to think that a high school crowd might actually flock to this irresponsible goofball comedy about the ditzy blonde captain of the cheerleader quad, Diane (Marley Shelton), who marries the star quarterback (James Marsden, X-Men) and is pregnant with his baby. Perhaps I'm underestimating teen standards. I sure hope so.

Another lowest-common-denominator high school romance made from the cannibalized parts of equally unambitious teen fare, "Whatever It Takes" stakes its bottom-feeder comedy ground almost immediately with a student assembly scene in which the school nurse (Julia Sweeney in a career low) demonstrates condom application on a five-foot phallus.

And it's all downhill from there.

Ryan (Shane West from TV's "Once and Again") and Maggie (Marla Sokoloff, the secretary on "The Practice") are next door neighbors, best friends and lonely hearts. She's sweet and dead sexy but can't find a beau, apparently because her IQ is larger than her bra size. He's one of those handsome movie "geeks" (illustrated mostly by the fact that he plays the accordion), hopelessly stuck on arrogant, air-headed Ashley (Jodi Lyn O'Keefe), the Prettiest Vixen in School.

A funny concept that gets too dumb in too much of a hurry, "Dude, Where's My Car?" is a low-brow comedy about two stoners trying to find one dude's beat-up Yugo the morning after a night of partying so awesome they can't remember a thing about it.

Sweet, dude!

Desperately tying to retrace their steps because they left presents for their bimbo girlfriends in the trunk, the two stoned boneheads discover their previous 12 hours apparently included strippers, jock bullies, getting tattooed, boffing Kristy Swanson ("Big Daddy") in the back seat, and five "extremely hot chicks with large breasts" in leather jump suits who turn out to be aliens looking for something called the Continuum Transponder.

Until the bank-robbing cheerleaders actually get around to the heist in the stereotype-askew teen comedy "Sugar and Spice," there isn't much to do but feel sorry for the actors.

Poor Mena Suvari, who played the teenage tease in "American Beauty," is dumped in a supporting role as a "rebel" cheerleader with a mouth like a sailor -- only this is a PG-13 movie, so she doesn't have much to do. Poor Rachel Blanchard played Marcia in two "Brady Bunch" movies and now she's stuck in bubble-headed roles like the Christian virgin cheerleader whose parents allow her to watch only G-rated movies.

Poor James Marsden, who managed to climb out of the teen slasher flick quagmire with "X-Men," takes a huge step backward playing the dopey star quarterback who knocks up the head cheerleader.